Two men wanted in the slaying of an exotic dancer in Pawtucket and in the assault of her friend were captured in an Ocala, Fla., apartment early yesterday, according to the Pawtucket police.

U.S. marshals and Ocala police found Barry Offley, 19, and Alonzo P. Shelton, 28, asleep in the same bed in a small windowless room, according to James Disbrow, a deputy U.S. marshal from Florida who made the arrest with three marshals and an Ocala police officer.

The men had been on the run since the Pawtucket police fingered them for the July 27 execution-style shooting death of 24-year-old Jessica Imran in her Pawtucket apartment. The police also allege the men shot Imran's friend, Julie Lange, 28, four times but she survived because the automatic pistol used to shoot her jammed. Lange is out of the hospital, Pawtucket Police Chief George L. Kelley III said at a news conference yesterday, which was attended by Pawtucket police, U.S. marshals from Rhode Island, the attorney general and the mayor of Pawtucket.

Marshals identified Shelton by a tattoo on his chest that read BAM, his street name, said Maj. John J. Whiting, the officer in charge of the Pawtucket detective division.

Shelton had no shirt on so the tattoo was immediately visible, Disbrow said. He said the two men were readily identifiable from their photographs. Three groups of law enforcement officers had gone to different locations in the area looking for the men, Disbrow said. Shelton and Offley were found in a middle apartment of a one-story three-unit building in a neighborhood known for crime, Disbrow said.

Sgt. Lou Bioni, of the Ocala, Fla., Police Department, who participated in the arrests, said no weapons were found on the suspects.

The TV show America's Most Wanted featured the Imran case on Aug 5. The show, which profiles the cases of criminals who have eluded capture, generated many tips and interest from law enforcement officials, Whiting said. But it was information from U.S. marshals in Rhode Island using tracking phones that helped lead the police to Florida, said Pawtucket Detective William Magill, who worked on the case and had traveled to Maryland at the invitation of America's Most Wanted to handle tips generated by viewers.

Magill said he was not surprised the two men were found together because most tips that had been received reported them together.

Shelton and Offley are being held at a Marion County jail and are scheduled for an extradition hearing this morning. They are being charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder, according to the police. Shelton has a record that includes convictions for robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon, according to Michael J. Healey, a spokesman for the attorney general's office.

Shelton was sentenced to five years in prison in 1995 after pleading no contest to four counts of robbery, according to Healey. Five years later Shelton was arrested for shooting a man in the Chad Brown housing complex in Providence. On Jan. 11, 2001, he pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon, possession of a firearm after being convicted of a crime of violence and discharging a firearm and causing injury while committing a crime of violence. Healey said he received a 20-year sentence with three years to serve. Shelton will be brought in as a violater of his 2001 probation, Healey said. The attorney general will seek to have him held 17 more years for that crime, Healey said.

The police say that Offley and Shelton fatally shot Imran and wounded her friend at the apartment Imran rented in a six-unit building on Lawn Avenue in Pawtucket. The police found the friend wounded outside the apartment after she used a cell phone to call 911.

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